Kirsty Mckenzie
THE number of people who made dangerous journeys across water to reach Malaga in 2021 has dropped by 75.45%.
Some 231 migrants succeeded in reaching the Costa del Sol over the last 12 months, compared to the 941 people rescued and transferred to the Malaga port in 2020.
Of the 231 people to arrive in Malaga in 2021, a total of 211 were men, five were women, 15 were minors.
The number of boats has also decreased, from 49 in 2020 to 27 this year 2021.
In the past, migrants might have come by aircraft or tried to enter on lorries – but a combination of factors including increased security and COVID have made those traditional routes less viable. So now the people smugglers and the desperate migrants are using small boats and jet skis.
With Spain’s mainland territory being located only about 20 kilometers away from Morocco at the most narrow point, many migrants from Morocco and also from other African countries seek to enter Spain by crossing the Mediterranean.
Others head west from Africa in a bid to reach Spain’s Canary Islands or try to climb over border fortifications into the Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta in Morocco.
Nearly 40,000 migrants arrived in Spain in 2021, more than half of them on the Canary Islands.
More than 1,000 people have lost their lives trying to reach the island group, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).
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